A Little Poetry

Just Sleep

When my dad comes into my bedroom at four in the morning I hide my wrists and listen to him yell at me as quiet as he can.

"Go to sleep" He says. But dad I can't. Don't you think I would be asleep by now if I could? He doesn't understand the insomnia.

"Just go to sleep" He said. "Just turn out the lights and listen to the silence" But dad the dark terrifies me into waking and the silence is only the sound of the loudest scream that suffocates my ears until I am deaf.

"Just go to sleep, I don't know what else to tell you" He complained. It's okay dad you can go to sleep, after all it's four in the morning, and you have to work tomorrow. I am okay laying here awake until the blinding sun comes up and my screeching alarm goes off to tell me that I have to get ready for school.

"Natalie just go to sleep just close your eyes" Dad my eyes don't stay shut. My eyes want to look through the wondrous horrors of the night.

"I don't understand why you don't sleep" Dad there is no way that you can understand, your eyes close when your body gives way to the dreams of night. My eyelids refuse to close to the terrors of my nightmares, no matter how painfully tired my body is.

"Natalie you have to sleep, you look terrible" dad I know how I look, with dark purple circles under my eyes, and my skin as white as a ghost. I don't need a mirror to see how the months of counting the hours that I'm awake reflects on my face.